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Charmaine Neville and Friends anchor Snug Harbor on Frenchmen Street

Charmaine Neville plays Snug Harbor in New OrleansWatch as singer Charmaine Neville and keyboardist Amasa Miller discuss their long partnership. They have played together at Snug Harbor Jazz Bistro since 1985. In addition to Neville and Miller, the band includes Detroit Brooks and Casandra Faulconer, with a guest appearance by Davell Crawford.

'We are not a band that fits in anybody's box. We play everything. We're very eclectic.' -- Charmaine Neville

The violet glow of dusk shone through the front window of the Snug Harbor Jazz Bistro on Frenchmen Street as singer Charmaine Neville, keyboardist Amasa Miller and drummer Raymond Weber chatted before the band’s early Monday night show. Miller said that he couldn’t be certain exactly when he and Neville began playing a regular gig in the intimate nightclub. He’s pretty sure it was 1985, but the calendars that he kept from that period had gotten wet during the 2005 flood and now they’ve become too brittle to consult.

Neville’s hands wandered expressively through the air as she recalled the beginning of her partnership with Miller a quarter century ago. The pianist she’d originally hired for the inaugural show got sick, she said, so she turned to Miller who has been by her side ever since. Neville’s extroverted stage persona and Miller’s exacting musical style are a perfect entertainment yin and yang. Neville joked that she’s been trying to fire Miller for years, but he never takes the hint. It’s obvious that just the opposite is true.

CATCH CHARMAINE AND FRIENDS AT FQF

The Charmaine Neville band plays French Quarter Fest 2013 at the Jackson Square WWL-TV Stage, from 12:30 to 1:45 Saturday, April 13.

Weber, who had been silent through much of the conversation, chimed in to point out that all of this ancient history was way before his time. Neville said that it was a point of pride that Weber, a master of New Orleans funk percussion, had left the gig a time or two to tour with Harry Connick Jr. and Dr. John.

In the past decade, Frenchmen Street has become an international magnet for music lovers. But, Weber said, Snug Harbor had been a destination for music lovers long before Frenchmen bloomed. Neville remembered when the street was mostly residences, punctuated by the Dream Palace nightclub, then the Praline Connection restaurant... She had played Snug Harbor even before 1985, accompanying her father Charles of the legendary Neville Brothers.

I saw at least one of those shows, staring over the railing in the front row of the balcony. It was my first time seeing Charmaine perform. I remember marveling at just how much father and daughter looked alike.

Before landing the regular weekly gig, Neville said that she and Miller played regularly at Snug Harbor; sometimes three and four nights per week. At first, she said, five people showed up, eventually 10, then 15, and finally on one momentous night they finally sold out a show. Neville had been thrilled. Eventually, the Charmaine Neville and Friends band settled into the Monday night slot at Snug Harbor, playing 8 and 10 p.m. shows.

As we spoke on a recent Monday night, tickets to the early show were already gone and tickets to the late show were selling quickly. Thirty-three Norwegian tourists would attend the first seating. At the curb, cabs were dropping off wide-eyed jazz lovers from elsewhere. A clangor of amplified music from other nearby nightclubs rose into the night sky.

“We are not a band that fits in anybody’s box,” Neville said. “We play everything. We’re very eclectic. We play everything from classical to gospel to country; it doesn’t matter.”

Guitarist Detroit Brooks and bass player Casandra Faulconer round out the versatile group.

From the moment she walked onto the brightly lit stage, Neville broke down the barrier between the audience and the performers with a casual conviviality. The set started with a novelty number about fruit juice, during which Neville comically warned of the dangers of vegetarianism. Later in the show, she performed a soliloquy on the subject of the suffocating Crescent City heat, segueing into a jazz rendition of “Summer Time.”

Along the way, Neville welcomed a visiting Japanese female jazz trumpeter to the stage for a charming extended solo, and a visiting Japanese drummer. She led audience members in impromptu scat singing lessons. She invited a curly-haired young man to take a guest turn at the piano where he demonstrated Juilliard-quality chops. New Orleans piano virtuosos Davell Crawford appeared from the bar to join Miller in a spirited, mostly instrumental rendition of “Sunny Side of the Street” – no one could remember all the words.

Somewhere in there Neville sang a fragile, impressionistic version of “Take the A Train.” “Hurry, hurry, hurry” she sang with imperative in hoarse whisper. Though, in Snug Harbor anyway, time had stood still.